Abstract

Michael Haynes has pointed out that the conventional methodology for estimating thenumber of Soviet war deaths provides only a lower limit. It calculates wartime“excess” deaths, assuming that no one was killed by the war who would normallyhave died anyway; this sets a lower bound on the number of real war deaths that mayhave resulted directly or indirectly from enemy action. Where is the upper limit?Haynes proposes the 16 million total of “normal” deaths as a measure of themaximum possible downward error when real Soviet war deaths are estimated by theexcess mortality method. The possible margin of downward error arising from thismethod can be calculated and is not 16 million but approximately 1.9 million.